THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS

Much to her agony, she didn’t mind lighting a cigarette, as the newspaper boy stood at the window of her car, begging her to buy a newspaper with awestruck eyes. She blew the puff of the smoke on him indicating him to run off.


She almost broke the horn honking it, thinking why couldn’t Mumbai have better infrastructural facilities.

The nostalgia of her childhood days in mahabaleshwar filled her. Oh what were those days! After coming back from the school she and her sister and friends would gleefully run off to the strawberry orchards and relished them till their stomachs began to ache! The strawberries assumed a different tang altogether when stolen. They would wander around the market buying imlis and would love to make the ittt sound with their tongue, eat the hot chanas et al

But the most she would become ecstatic about the monthly melas. She would wait eagerly to sit on the giant wheel so that she would beheld the magic of mahabaleshwar-the temples depicting the history of the years gone by, the mountains that would speak to the clouds, the waterfalls that were like blessings, the beautiful sunset and its shade which made her think that even god loves to color and the greenery that was the replica of heaven. And after that she would enjoy the dizziness and the whimsical feel of it.

Unfortunately or fortunately, her family moved to Mumbai, because of her dad’s transfer. The transfer bought in ‘the-raking-in-moolah’ lifestyle, the usual drinking of the high-class people and the dull and botox natured kitty parties. But somewhere this girl wished she could go to the same melas, wear those frilly frocks, lick the strawberry pulp that would run down her elbow, sleep on the green grasses and wake up to see the enticing dews that could reflect the entire ambience in it, watch the butterflies leave their colors when they sat on her finger tips, hear the humorous stories her grandpa told her till there were tears in her lachrymal glands and the horror ones at which she would get goose bumps and would cling to her grandpa the entire night!

The horn blowed from the back jerking her back to the reality. She drove her way to the Alzheimer’s home where her mother was admitted from the past 5 years. She thought it to be a good talisman that the doctors had told her that the disease was hereditary whereas she could remember everything about her childhood. She entered in and said to the receptionist-ROOM NO.302. I HAVE TO MEET MY MOTHER SHEILA RAMAKANT. The receptionist replied- “uh….. Ma’am you attended her funeral two weeks ago.”